HDTV Ratings: March 20

TV2’s HD hit Go Girls is losing its lead as Tuesday’s 8.30pm front-runner.

Last night’s episode saw it neck-and-neck in the 25-54 demographic for the first time with HD rivals on TV One and TV3.

It barely won the slot with 10.8%, compared with 10.7% for Nature’s Great Events and 10.3% for NCIS.

Indeed, TV One’s Nature re-run won two of its quarter-hour segments, and Go Girls only one, as the former’s audience built over the hour, from  9.9% to 11.7%, whereas the latter’s slipped, from 11.2% to 10.5% (as did NCIS’, from 11.5% to 8.8%).

TV One and TV3 will be delighted with how their programmes rated. It was a shrewd move by TV One to capitalise on Frozen Planet’s popularity by repeating Nature in the same slot but presenting it for the first time in HD.

And TV3 will be relieved to see NCIS’ big bounce back after its dismal debut last month.

While the 8.30 race wasn’t as tight in other demos, it was still competitive: the 18-49 ratings were 10.4% for Girls, 9.9% for Nature, and 8.6% for NCIS; the 18-39 ratings were 11%, 9.0% and 8.1% respectively.

Only among household shoppers did Girls open up an untouchable lead on NCIS — 14.6% versus 6.2% — but was still barely a point ahead of Nature.

NCIS’ Los Angeles spin-off was 2-3 points down on its lead-in but out-rated TV2’s Rookie Blue and TV One’s I Shouldn’t Be Alive in the 25-54 demo while being competitive in all the other demos except HHS.

Earlier in the evening, TV3’s Secret Life of Dancers continued to flat-foot it in the ratings, averaging only 2.4%-3.9% against TV2’s HD comedy, The Middle, which averaged a whopping 12.5%-16.5% to win the slot.

HD lead-out Suburgatory was down 2-3 points as MasterChef NZ and Missing Pieces picked up viewers — enough for the former to win with 18-49 and 25-54 year-olds and the latter to average 5.5%-8.9%.